


Sehnsucht

by panda_hiiro



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-27
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-15 03:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panda_hiiro/pseuds/panda_hiiro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-shot. Something is missing. John Egbert knows this, even if he can't say what it is...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sehnsucht

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coneyinacap](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=coneyinacap).



> This was a gift for a friend!

Something is missing.

John Egbert knows this, even if he can’t say what it is. It isn’t like he wants for anything - he has a good life. He lives with the best grandparents, father, and sister any kid could ask for, he has a best friend that is beyond cool, and a really pretty girl that he’s more than a little sweet on. He loves all of them and loves everything about his life, but…

But when he sleeps he dreams in flashes of blue and gold, of open skies and vast, immeasurable space. In his dreams he owns the winds, and he soars through the sky on nothing more than a breath of air.

There is death and destruction in his dreams, too - he sees his friends and his family and they all fall around him, and these are the visions that he wakes screaming from, inconsolable until he can hold someone and make sure that they’re still there, still real. But no matter what dreams he dreams he always wakes from them with an aching, a longing for that unnameable thing that has plagued him as long as he can remember.

The first time he notices her she’s little more than a shadow, a half-imagined flash in the corner of his eye. She’s more feeling than presence, really, and John starts to think maybe he’s imagined her completely until he actually catches her watching him. He’s surprised, really, that she doesn’t try to hide - he figures that’s what shadowy assailants are supposed to do, but she just stands there, watching him with an expectant look. Oh, yeah, and she’s apparently an alien. That takes him a second, too.

“Hello, John.”

“Um. Hi.” He pauses. “Who…are you?”

“I’m an alien. Duh.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that. But why are you here? Are you going to abduct me or something?”

“Well. Maybe, in a way,” she says, frowning. “The fact that you’ve noticed me means you’re coming out of it. This dream bubble might not last much longer.”

“Dream…bubble? Is that some kind of alien thing?”

“I can’t explain it to you.” She looks kind of sad, and the more John looks at her the more he thinks she’s kind of pretty, for an alien - two curved horns poking through a mess of wild black hair, a pair of fangs behind black lips, and charcoal gray skin. She wears glasses, too, which John thinks is funny, because he never heard of any alien wearing glasses. “If I tell you what’s really going on, it will change everything.”

“But I really want to know,” he says, “No, I need to know! Please, tell me?”

She hesitates, at that.

“Are you sure? Do you reaaaaaaaally want to know? Even if it means losing everything you have, do you want me to tell you?”

“I think you’re just messing with me,” John says, frowning. “But…I don't know, I feel like I need to be talking with you right now. Maybe you can tell me what it is I’ve been missing all this time. You might be the only one that can tell me.”

A strange look crosses her face, at that, but she nods all the same and continues on.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she says. “You’re dead, John. You, your family, your friends, even me - all of them, they’re all dead.”

“Oh.”

“Wait - aren’t you upset?”

“Well, yeah, I can’t really say I’m happy about it. But, if that’s the case, there’s not anything I can do about it, right?” He shrugs. “I mean, I guess it does explain some things. I feel kind of like Bruce Willis at the end of the Sixth Sense.”

“What will you do now?”

“I don’t know. It is kind of hard to swallow, being told that you’re dead by an alien ghost - even if you are a pretty alien ghost. Maybe I’ll try to find a way to prove it?” He pauses, and looks back at her. “What about you?”

“Me? I guess I’ll move on. I’ve been wandering for a long time now, trying to find someone who remembers me. Someplace I can call home.” She grins a little, and flips her hair. “Thanks for saying I’m pretty, by the way.”

“Well, maybe…I could come with you?”

She freezes, and stares at him with incredulity written on every feature.

“Are you sure?” She says, a little tremor of hesitation in her voice. “If you leave now, you might not ever be able to come back here. I don’t know what we’ll find out there.”

He realizes it’s crazy – that all of this is crazy, throwing his life or his afterlife or whatever it is that he’s really been living here away on this strange girl that he’s just met. But, at the same time, it feels more right than anything else he’s ever done.

John smiles, and takes her hand in his own. 

“That’s why we’re going to go find out together.”


End file.
